Notes

ROSE GARDEN
I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden. Go and look at the paperwork, where it is clearly stated that I promised you a ditch rife with puddles and nettles, teeming with tiny creatures, worms, flatworms, things with hundreds of legs and vibrating antennae, things with bulbous globular eyes and things with no eyes at all. It is also made crystal clear that this ditch is designed to surround your chalet, like a moat, and that no roses will grow in it. A towering hollyhock or two, yes, but not a single rose. Why on earth do you think that I promised you a rose garden?
How dare you accuse me of tampering with the papers! Are you seriously suggesting that I tippexed out whole paragraphs of the original and used a scratchy nib to insert a completely different schedule of works? You are casting aspersions upon my skills as a landscape designer of note and inferring that I am but a brute armed with a spade. I travelled the length and breadth of the country to find you specimens of the creepy crawlies you requested, rare maggots, weird blind wriggling transparent night crawlers, slithering horrors, and all the rest. There was no rainfall for weeks on end, so I created those puddles with my bare hands, carting bucket after bucket of duckpond water from the brackish duckpond over yonder beyond the municipal bandstand. It would have been a lot easier to plant a few roses in the ground, believe me.
Yes, I know you did not call me a brute with a spade, those were my words, but that is what you would have said were you a man of plain speech rather than a pompous puffed up milksop given to Jesuitical circumlocution. Has it occurred to you that your very verbosity may have contributed to you getting a ditch dug around your chalet instead of a rose garden? You could have said to me "I'd like a rose garden, please," and I would have taken that on board, but oh no, such simple language is not your style.
You did not say "I'd like a rose garden, please". I refute that utterly. If you had said that, why would I be clutching three files of paperwork which clearly show that you asked for a moat-like ditch rife with puddles and nettles and creeping creatures to be dug to a depth of six feet around your chalet, without any provision for a drawbridge? Do you think I just made that up off the top of my head? Why would I do that? Ditch digging is back-breaking work, especially when you only have one old rusty dented bent and battered spade to work with. Try it yourself.
There is no drawbridge straddling the ditch because you clearly specified that you did not require one. Yes, that did perplex me, but I assumed you were planning to vault the ditch on those long spidery legs of yours.
It is preposterous to argue now that you did not ask for a drawbridge because you would not need one to gain access to this putative rose garden you keep harping on about. Will you stop banging your fists on that portcullis?
Well... I will grant you that. It is indeed unusual to find a portcullis blocking the door of a chalet where there is no accompanying drawbridge. The two usually go together, I agree. And no, nowhere in the bundle of papers do you request the installation of a massive cast iron portcullis requiring the strength of ten muscular peasants to winch it up, which is why it does not come with a winch, or any kind of levers or pulleys or such contrivances. I am a landscapist, not an engineer.
If you recall, on the tenth day that the works were being carried out on your ditch, I told you that I would be unavailable on the following Thursday as I had to attend the presentation of a prize cup far, far away in a distant, cold, and mountainous land. Your immovable portcullis was installed in my absence, by rogues. It has nothing to do with me.
I have had quite enough of this. I am about to send my messenger starling to perch on your portcullis. Tuck the banknotes in the ring around its leg and flap your arms as a spur to send it back to me. If you do not do so, I am going to go and fetch my old rusty dented bent and battered spade and I will fill in your ditch. The puddles and the nettles and the teeming creeping creatures will vanish under piles of muck and mud and soil, and you will cut a forlorn figure, a Jesuitical milksop hammering on your portcullis, a man without a ditch.

EPOCH OF SNARES
We all know that there was an age known as the Epoch of Snares, but it is surprising how little is generally known about it. This was a time when giant badger-like beings roamed the hills of the earth, when the oceans were deeper, darker, and more terrifying than they are now, and when only the very bravest of souls volunteered to crew the enormous primitive container ships that plied across those seas.
It was an age of seething murderousness, of great cosmic shifts, of roaring winds that uprooted the few pitiful scrags of vegetation that struggled for life in soil that was not soil as we know it today. In the Epoch of Snares, soil was much more friable, and crumbly, and sometimes even very crumbly. It seldom had the compactness or density to hold a plant secure from the biting winds, the same winds whose intense coldness seemed somehow to inspire the giant badger-like beings up in the hills. There were more hills then, higher, more rounded, covering vast expanses.
In those times shoes had not been invented. Hard to imagine that the fierce and burly sailors on those container ships did everything they had to do in bare feet, or sometimes wearing sock-like wrappings. We no longer know how such things were made, from what materials, with what technology, for all the wrappings that were ever worn have perished, and our only evidence is some briskly-scribbled drawings done with the aid of a clairvoyant whose brews, when taken in sufficient quantities, enabled her to picture the past. Or so she claimed.
Men and women were outnumbered by pelicans in those days. Some estimates say there were two hundred pelicans to every person, but these were not our modern pelicans. They came in all sizes, some as tiny as hamsters, others bigger than the biggest of the giant badger-like beings that roamed the windswept hills. Some would have it that a huge asteroid from a faraway galaxy, lumbered with millions upon millions of eggs, smashed into the earth, and the impact scattered these alien eggs and from them the pelicans hatched, but this is a frankly ludicrous theory, and one not given credence when one considers that it was propounded by a gibbering maniac chained to the wall of a cellar in a bleak and derelict village. That maniac is my brother, so I know whereof I speak.
Indeed, so assiduous have my studies been these last fifty years that I believe I know more about the Epoch of Snares than anyone else alive. I know what freight was carried in those primitive container ships that crossed ceaselessly from shore to shore. Bales. A staggering number of bales of every size and description, handled and watched over with infinite care by those fearsome, fearless sailors, a special breed, so different from the weedy landlubbers who vied for scarce resources with innumerable pelicans, and so nearly lost the struggle. But of course the pelicans were all but wiped out in just one winter, and even I do not know how that happened.
The Epoch of Snares is notable, too, because it was an era when only one type of cloud appeared in the sky, namely the anvil cloud. The anvil cloud is the description for the upper portion of a towering cumulonimbus, mostly ice, which forms high in thunderstorms, and there were constant thunderstorms at that time. People did not then fear thunder and lightning, as many do today, nor did the pelicans fear the wrack and roar of storms, but what do you think it was that had all those giant badger-like beings charging back and forth over the hills? Terror, is the answer, terror of thunder in particular. These strange beasts' ears were hypersensitive, could hear things that people and pelicans could not, and whatever it was they heard in the thunder filled them with fear, and so they would be forever seeking a place of safety, but never finding one, for they never came down from the high hills.
The badger-beings, too, died out, but not at the same time as the pelicans. Geological upheavals have flattened many of the hills where they crashed around in panic, and no one has yet found any trace of their bones. Perhaps it is true what my brother says, that the badger-beings never existed, were but a vapour in the brain of some historical fantasist, but I doubt he can be right about that and so hopelessly, ridiculously wrong about the pelicans. I hope you will concur.
As we have seen, the people of that time had no shoes. Nor did they have saints. As far as I have been able to ascertain they did not have what we would today think of as a religion. To be sure, they subscribed to a cosmogony, they had some dim, dull-witted inkling of how the earth and the heavens, the sun and moon and stars, and anvil clouds, all fitted together, but it was not one I have wasted time trying to understand, for it was clearly idiotic. I have in my pouch a diagram made by that clairvoyant I mentioned earlier, which purports to show the universe as understood in the Epoch of Snares, but it is a slapdash diagram and, I feel, only muddies waters already murky enough.
And why, everyone asks, sooner or later, is this long-ago age known as the Epoch of Snares? Why not the Epoch of Bales, of Badger-beings, of Interplanetary Pelicans? Why not the Epoch of Enormous Primitive Container Ships That Plied Across The Seas? Why not, indeed, the Epoch of No Shoes? Go to the bleak and derelict village, enter that dark dank cellar, approach the gibbering maniac chained to the wall. Ask my brother. He will tell you.

TENTH ANNIVERSARY (IV)
It is day four of our tenth anniversary celebrations. Here is a piece entitled Far, Far Away, originally posted on Monday 4 September 2006. It is one of Mr Key's own favourites.
Far, far away, there is a galaxy of shattered stars, stars crumpled and curdled and destitute, and there is a planet tucked in among these sorry stars, a tiny pink planet of gas and water and thick foliage, and tucked in among the fronds and creepers and enormous leaves of this foliage lie millions of unhatched eggs, and when they hatch they will hatch millions of magnetic mute blind love monkeys.
I am a crew member of the starship Corrugated Cardboard, heading implacably through deep space towards the galaxy of crumpled stars. Seven years into the voyage, only four of us remain from the original manifest of twenty. There is my captain, o my captain, Pilbrow, a hirsute, raving martinet. We have tied him with cords and confined him to a cupboard, for he has become impossibly dangerous. His spittle is sulphurous, it burns that which it touches, and as he raves, he spits, and he is never not raving, not any more. Ever since we passed through the belt of [illegible] Pilbrow seems no longer human. Being the science officer, I tried to study him, at first. Wearing big protective gloves I transferred flecks of his spittle into my alembic, and ignited my bunsen burners, and peered intently at Pilbrow's burning spittle, hoping to learn something. I learned nothing. We have travelled far, far beyond the belt of [illegible], and still I have learned nothing. Thus the binding with cords, and thus the cupboard.
Also surviving is Pilbrow Two, a half-size version of my captain, o my captain, made of cardboard, wax and string and animated with life by sparks of something akin to, but not quite, electricity. Pilbrow Two is indubitably alive, a pulsating, rustling, thinking, breathing thing, but it has nothing in common with the raving martinet tied by cords in the cupboard. At the beginning of the voyage, we considered changing its name, we even spent a few days calling it Unpilbrow or Antipilbrow, but neither of these caught on, possibly because Pilbrow Two would boom "My name is Pilbrow Two!" in its deafening voice. Our cardboard, wax and string crewmate has been invaluable in keeping our spirits up. I do not think we would still be heading for the galaxy of crumpled and destitute stars, and for the tiny pink planet, if it were not for his--her? its?--determination. Lumpen would have had us turn back, I am sure of it.
Lumpen is the other survivor. He has been morose and sullen since we ran out of breakfast cereal two years ago, after missing the supply depot on the Planet of Grocery Provisions Epsilon Six where we were due to collect a consignment of Kellogg's Fruit 'n' Fibre. He keeps to his bunk now, head buried in a metalback copy of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, his pipe clenched in his teeth, the fumes of his untreated Serbian tobacco hanging in the pseudo-air of the cabin. At least it kills the flies.
The bullet-riddled corpses of our dead crewmates, all sixteen of them, are coffined up and the coffins stacked as a makeshift ping pong table. We cleared a space in the cargo hold by jettisoning some crates of irrelevant rubbish we were meant to be delivering to one of the outlying mini-planets of Hubbardworld. There will be hell to pay if we ever get home, but home seems so far away now, so far, far away. Pilbrow Two is a superb ping pong player, never letting its bat get caught in its string, but I am better. We have played thousands of games over the years, and I have won nearly all of them, sometimes without losing a point. Because it has no heart, Pilbrow Two is not disheartened, and comes to every match with the same valiant perkiness that keeps us plunging ever further through space towards the galaxy of shattered stars.
One afternoon, after a particularly gruelling ping pong match, Pilbrow Two confessed to me that what kept it going, what kept it tweaking the boosters to increase our speed, even at the cost of sending the starship into judders which popped some of the bolts on the pseudo-air-seals, was that it was filled with a burning lust for the as yet unhatched magnetic mute blind love monkeys patiently awaiting birth on the tiny pink planet. This was the first I had heard of them. I became confused, and flung question after question at the half-size cardboard, wax and string simulacrum of my captain, o my captain, but it answered none of them. Instead, it showed me pages of twee love poetry it had been writing, and led me to a corner of the cargo hold where it had hidden a stash of love tokens--mostly things made out of some kind of tin, flowers and lockets and brooches, finicky bittybobs it was going to bestow upon the magnetic mute blind love monkeys once they were born. When I protested that there were, supposedly, millions of these monkeys, Pilbrow Two explained to me, with a winsome sigh, that its love knew no bounds, and nor did its lust, for when it had been programmed back in the lab that gave it life, a stray spark had imbued it with a superabundance of love, lust, and ping pong perkiness.
I wondered whether to share these revelations with Lumpen. But what would be the use? Patting Pilbrow Two on its cardboard head, I picked up my ping pong bat and challenged it to another game, and we played and played and played, as my captain, o my captain, Pilbrow, raved and spat and struggled with his binding cords in his cupboard, we played as Lumpen smoked his pipe and read Ayn Rand for the thousandth time, we played as the starship Corrugated Cardboard hurtled inexorably through space towards the galaxy of stars shattered and stars crumpled, stars curdled and stars destitute, wherein nestled the tiny pink planet of gas and water and thick foliage, wherein nestled millions of unhatched eggs, wherein nestled millions of unhatched magnetic mute blind love monkeys, awaiting their unlikely Romeo, a cardboard, wax and string simulacrum of my captain, o my captain, called Pilbrow Two, bearing poetry and love tokens, far, far away.

FEAR EATS THE SOUL
There is a story told that one night Tiny Enid awoke from troubled dreams, went downstairs to get a glass of milk, and was amazed, when looking out of the kitchen window, to see the Burning Wheel Of Doom in the fields beyond the bottom of her garden. It was turning slowly, with hideous creaks, its huge flames licking the sky. Tiny Enid drained her glass, draped a shawl over her dressing-gown, slipped into her Uruguayan Mountain Ranger boots, and unlocked the back door. She walked down to the wicket gate, marvelling that the fierceness of the fire was such that night was banished, and the sky as bright as day.
As Tiny Enid unlatched the gate, her pet crow hopped along the path to follow her. He could not fly, for he was a crippled crow. Hearing the tap tap tap of his talons on the paving, Tiny Enid turned, and whispered, "You must stay indoors, Ilya Kuryakin, it is not safe for you". No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a snaggle-toothed ruffian stole out of the bushes and hoisted Tiny Enid over his shoulder, cackling as he carried her off towards the Burning Wheel Of Doom.
Let us not judge the snaggle-toothed ruffian too harshly. He was a poor half-witted hobbledehoy whose moral compass had been skewed, growing up as he did during the sorry years of the John Major government, in which his father had served. Have compassion for him, children, for he had no Hoons nor Blunketts to swaddle him against a cruel world. Indeed, have more compassion for him than Tiny Enid showed on that wild and strange night. Reasoning that she may as well take advantage of being carried across the mud-splattered fields, she waited until they were three quarters of the way to the Burning Wheel Of Doom before reaching up, pushing aside a greasy strand of hair from the snaggle-toothed ruffian's ear, and saying loudly "Unhand me now, sir, or I shall wring your neck".
The snaggle-toothed ruffian cackled again, and plodded onward, so Tiny Enid swung herself off his shoulder and wrung his neck. Dusting off her hands, she looked back towards the house to make sure her pet crow had stayed indoors, and then turned to face the Burning Wheel Of Doom. The creaks were that much louder now, the flames higher and more terrible. Imagine you were at her side, clutching her hand in your fright, and you asked her "What do you see, Tiny Enid?" This is what she might say:
"This is a strange night, and grows stranger still, for I do not see what I thought I would see at the base of the Burning Wheel Of Doom. I have heard many tales of it, and always there are peasants dancing in a circle around it, their brains bedizened by ergot poisoning, and as they reel, they pass from hand to hand a flagon filled with the blood of ducks, and they each drink of it, and they babble and screech and wail. And over to their left should be a band of other peasants, tooting pipes and horns and plucking harps and beating drums. Yet there is no peasantry here, just the creaking Burning Wheel Of Doom, ablaze in the night, in the field by the lake."
Tiny Enid would pause for a moment, taking a few steps forward, and then add, "Yet someone must have sent the snaggle-toothed ruffian to abduct me. Who could that be?"
She reached under her shawl to the pocket of her dressing-gown and took out a box of matches and a cheroot. Disconcerted to find all the matches in the box spent, she squelched back through the mud to where the lifeless body of the snaggle-toothed ruffian lay, and rifled through his pockets. She found not only a surprisingly expensive cigarette lighter--with which she hastily lit her cheroot--but a calfskin wallet containing cash, a bus pass, creased and crumpled receipts from sordid shops, an asbo, and a photograph of the snaggle-toothed ruffian's father. Discarding the rest, she gave the snaggle-toothed ruffian a kick with her Uruguayan Mountain Ranger boot, and studied the snapshot carefully.
As the wind blew across the muddy field, Tiny Enid stood in her shawl, looking now at the photograph, now at the Burning Wheel Of Doom, from one to the other, at first perplexed, then gradually putting two and two together, until her eyes lit up with the gleam of certainty. The snaggle-toothed ruffian's father's face was unclear in the picture. He was turned sideways on, shaking hands with John Major, who was instantly recognisable of course, with his tidy grey hair, his spectacles, and that curiously distended upper lip area. They had been photographed in front of a hoarding emblazoned with words which, though only partly visible, suggested something triumphant about milk. Other clues indicated that the picture had been taken in the snaggle-toothed ruffian's papa's parliamentary constituency, on a Thursday, in winter. The penny dropped.
Tiny Enid ran pell-mell back to the house, the Burning Wheel Of Doom blazing furiously behind her now. Stopping only to check that Ilya Kuryakin the crow was nestled safe and sound in his basket, she grabbed her address book and flicked through the pages until she found the name she was looking for. Glancing at the clock in the hallway, she picked up her metal tapping machine and dialled the number, hoping that she would not be too late. He may have had to resign twice, in disgraceful circumstances, but she still owed undying loyalty to blind David Blunkett, and she would save him if she could...
When, hours later, dawn broke, the Burning Wheel Of Doom over by the lake in the fields was sputtering and dying, extinguished by a fresh fall of morning drizzle. Ilya Kuryakin slept peacefully in his crow-basket. Tiny Enid sat at her kitchen table, having kicked off her Uruguayan Mountain Ranger boots and hung her shawl on the radiator. She was smoking another cheroot and drinking another glass of milk, waiting patiently for the squeak of the newspaper delivery boy's bicycle wheels, for the thud of the Daily Manacle on her doormat, anticipating the glow of pleasure she would feel when she saw her name once again, as bold as she, in banner headlines, the heroine of the hour.
DETOURS : Odd Ends ... Deserted Icelandic Farmhouses ... Natural Magick